Getting the message out through translation

Mass media play an important role in disseminating politics and rulers opinions and decisions and in mediating between politicians and the public elsewhere. There are various examples about that; the French presidential election, just to mention, is a clear demonstration of it. We could see how the two political leaders had an important effect on their audiences and how important was the role played by media to help them to access to the presidency for Nicolas Sarkozy, and to the leadership of the leftwing party for Ségolène Royal.

Further, translation is a bridge between addressees and addressers beyond national bounders. In a given country, reactions to a statement made in another country, is, in fact, reactions to the information as provided in translation. Thus, translation's effects are perceptible when it comes to economy to culture and to politics above all. We do remember the translation of the word 'crusade' used by G.W. Bush in many of his speeches when talking about 'international terror'. The situation was explosive. Neither Bush was wrong in using that word, nor were translators when translating it by its Arabic equivalent. All Bush's discourses have had a religious connotation and were carefully prepared by his psyopers and counselors. A little time after, Bush retracted and said it was a slip of the tongue.

On the basis of translation and lexical choice made by translators (or translation agencies), the material is exploited eventually to the advantages of politicians. That means that if translators were instructed to use specific terms and avoid others, translation objectiveness is not respected, elsewhere, the target text or message is not reliable but biased . In addition, politicians usually don't go back to the original text. Once produced, texts lead a life of their own. People form their opinions on the basis of such reports and decisions are made on the basis of information provided to them by media.

On the other hand, journalists use information as provided by news agencies or they produce translation themselves. I many cases, texts are not produced on the basis of a complete source text's translation, but in view of specific needs, journalists extract only selections for a translation process or take selections of a whole translated text and rewrite it by building a new text from the selection and adding commentaries. This does have incidence on politics and decision making in view of these type of mediated and translated texts. That's why; we consider that even translation does play an important role, otherwise, in disseminating politics and ruler's opinions and in mediating between politicians and the public.

There are also agencies and services specialized in translating media that journalists seek. We can mention web sites of Mideastwire.com , Watching America , Anti Defamation League , Communication Dubai , Anti-Semitism Monitoring Forum , but the Middle East Media Research Institute, shorthanded MEMRI , is the leader in the West and in the US specifically. It translates Arab media by making good translation in form; but biased in deep, because it makes previous selections of the translated text and give a new titled and commented report. The dangerous thing is that US politicians and congressmen receive its daily reports and make their decisions in view of what they read.

Created in 1998 by two Israeli, the institute has a pro Israeli orientation despite its director Yigal Carmon says that his organization is independent and non-partisan and that its purpose is to enrich the debate on American policy in the Middle East. Other personalities doubt this neutrality like Ibrahim Hooper the Strategic Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) , William Rugh, former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Yemen , Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan and journalists like Brian Whitaker from the Guardian , Mustapha Abdelghani from Al Ahram, Fehmi Hwidi from Al Arabi, Leila Hudson from the journal of Middle East Policy and Mohamed El Oifi from Le Monde Dipolmatique. With 82 visitors each month and daily mailings to politicians and journalists, Memri became the first Arab media gateway to the West.
Here are three journalists (and the list is too long) that have made their opinions on the basis of what they read on Memri's reports:

1- Diana West in his article "The animus against America" (April 7, 2003, The Washington Times) said: "The aggression against Iraq is an assault on Islam, the Quran and the message of Muhammad", the PA said via government television's broadcast of a recent Friday sermon (translated by www.memri.org), sounding a favorite theme of the Arab World"

2- Susan Sachs in his article "Anti-Semitism is deepening among Muslims" (April 27, 2002, The New York Times) said: "Last month the Saudi daily Al Riyadh published an article that accused Jews of consuming the blood of Christian and Muslim children during the holiday of Purim. The author, a lecturer at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia, called this medieval fiction a 'well-established fact'. After the article was translated by an Israel based group called the Middle East Media Research Institute, the editor of the newspaper repudiated the article, saying it was nonsense and should not have been published."

3- Jay Nordlinger in his article "Thanks for the (Memri.org) An institute, and its website, bring the Arab World to light" (September 13, 2004, National Review Online) said: "After the9/11 attacks, the West realized that it knew little about the Arab World- in fact, dangerously little. Why do they hate us so, and did this come out of the blue? It seemed imperative to learn more about the Arabs- to learn, for example, what they were saying to one another, in their media, in their schools, and in their mosques. The Arab World had always been dark this way, it needed to come into light."

Articles translated by Memri don't reflect opinion in the Arab world about the West neither do they reflect Arab sentiment in the respect of any particular matter. They are only a sample drowned in a sea of ideas brought by one group or another in one country or another. It is true that the translation helps to get out the message but professionals have to be careful when dealing with this means, because it is ultimately a means.
Freedom of speech makes sense only if there is a wide range of media. This freedom can find echoes outside its national borders by the translation / interpretation of these media. A translation that we want diversified and not focused on one issue or another and that we want out of any other ideology and instrumentalization of any party whatsoever. Thus the reader/listener/viewer could build its opinion on the basis of a 'whole' text/article and not on the basis of the selections of it.

For further reading:

www.mideastwire.com
www.watchingamerica.com
www.adl.org
www.communicationdubai.com
www.antisemitism.org.il related to the israeli ministry of foreign affairs' website www.mfa.gov.il
www.memri.org.